Congrats, you whores!
The Real Housewives of New Jersey actually made my brain sick. But
kadooze to Bravo for combining their established brand with the kind of crazy you only find on true Reality breakouts. The inclusion of Bernie Kerik in the finale was a tip of the hat to the
affluencers who know who he is, and the table-flipping apropos of NOTHING made sure all 4.6 million viewers were entertained.
I watched every minute of
RHONJ, or
Guido Beach 2, because I feel obligated to spend my Tuesday nights with upper-middle class women of a certain age from the safe distance of my living room. But
The Real Housewives of New York City are my favorite of the franchise, and I miss those bitches.
Because although you couldn't call all of the New York women
smart--at least most of them were educated. And from Caroline Manzo's sneering about how she thought being "life-smart" was better than being "book-smart" in episode one, go ahead and marvel at the irony that the whole dinner party meltdown, not to mention the crux of the drama throughout the entire season, all came from a
book.
The evil Manzo Sisters, the rock-stupid Jacqueline, and the despicable prostitute Teresa Guidice--perhaps the only stage mother whose children would be
serviced with a life in show business, as their only genetic alternative is flunking out of "book-smarts academy" AKA "school"--should all pat themselves on the
schiena for perpetuating the ugliest of Italian-American stereotypes. While
Jill Zarin ended up showing America what a classy Jewish woman looks like, they made Jersey ladies seem like bullying, shallow, mean girls with means, without any intellectual curiosity or tolerance for people outside their socio-cultural clan. Danielle, meanwhile, in true underdog form, has gone and brightened
Michael K's inspired existence, so God bless and keep her and her fantastic eyebrows.
I had high hopes for this show. I thought it would combine the format of the RH franchise with the best parts of
The Sopranos--I always loved the female characters on that show, and preferred the family conflict to the crime drama. But in the case of
The Sopranos, a genius EP and writer was pulling the characters' strings. In this case, producers just wound up the ones that came attached.
I guess it's good TV, but I miss the genius pomposity of
The Countess, and Ramona's incredulity when Bethenny told her that, to keep her brand consistent, she should spell her Tru-Renewal facial products and her
True Faith Jewelry line with the same incarnation of "Tru."
And while Ramona displayed a novice's understanding of what it means to be classy when she went on TV and debated what it meant to be classy, she still looked up Richard Meier after Kelly invited her to his studio. Sure, anyone can type an architect's name into Wikipedia, and nobody should make a point to talk about doing it--but at least Ramona took the trouble to put some effort into learning about the accomplishments of someone with talent, so she could have something to talk about when she got to see his work. Instead of her new fucking bubbies, and how her husband tried to rape her in the car after she got them.
Class up, Jersey.
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